A reception was hosted in Newman House on St Stephen's Green, Dublin for the pioneering cohort of Research Nurses registering for the country's first course dedicated to research nursing. Twelve nurses from Dublin, Cork and Galway, the course faculty and student mentors attended a reception hosted by Molecular Medicine Ireland on 8th September. Ruth Barrington, CEO of Molecular Medicine Ireland, highlighted the importance of the occasion: "This provides a critical part of the infrastructure we are building to support collaborative clinical research across Ireland", she reported as she welcomed the guests to the event and praised the persistence of the RCSI who had the foresight to see a need for training nurses specialising in research nursing.

“In clinical research, research nurses play an important role in looking out for the interests of patients and their families and much of this course is about learning to play this role in a clinical research setting.” said Professor Seamus Cowman, RCSI’s Professor of Nursing. The course is a Level 9 course with full NUI accreditation. The hope is that students will go on to supplement this course with further related master’s level courses and use it as a stepping stone to achieving a range of postgraduate qualifications in health sciences. Professor Dermot Kenny, Clinical Director of the RCSI’s Clinical Research Centre and Associate Director of the Dublin Centre for Clinical Research, emphasised the importance of research nursing to the clinical research endeavour. “Without you, clinical research doesn’t happen”. The course was developed as part of the Dublin Centre for Clinical Research, a programme of clinical research jointly funded by the Health Research Board and the Wellcome Trust. Jeremy Towns, Programme Manager for the DCCR welcomed the opportunity the course provides for research nurses to network and get to know each other, as from now on, there will be a growing number of collaborative multi-site studies being carried out in Dublin and across Ireland.